


A Study In Crimson, Part 2: Rache

by gardnerhill



Series: A Study In Crimson [3]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Gen, Pirate Sherlock, Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Shear-Lock has a score to settle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Sailing Master

**Author's Note:**

> This story begins immediately after the end of "The Press-Gang."

Our revelry lasted long into the night. We ate and drank gluttonously as befitted seamen ashore; I tasted my first shark-meat, as stout and sturdy fare as a good beefsteak (my bonesaw-hand proved a capital carving-blade, much to our delight, and I put in much good practice in the use of my new limb); we danced in the flickering torch-light with the whores and ourselves (a knotted kerchief about the neck designating which of the dancing men was to act the lass) to the giddy music of fiddle, concertina and fife; and the aforesaid whores proved the worth of their trade by pleasing the full complement of the Baker's company that clamoured for their wares. (Not all clamoured; Small and Tonga removed themselves to the shadows beyond the torches to enjoy their own marital simulacrum, Billy slept off his ale, and Shear-Lock remained at his violin with not a stitch of clothing awry the entire night.)

I slept where I lay on the sand, as naked as my shipmates; I was muzzed on rum, replete with a full belly and blissful with the bone-deep relief of having been with a woman after weeks at sea. 

"Jack. Up, my lad."

I sat up, instantly awake at the command from my captain. All was dark, the deep dark many hours before sunrise. The torches had gone out; everyone else lay in dark lumps scattered across the sand. The ocean soughed and bats flitted overhead. Shear-lock was a darker outline in the dark sky over me. 

"Cap-"

"Hsh." He gestured for me to follow him. 

I gained my feet – awkwardly, now that I had both a game leg and a stump instead of a left hand – and fumbled for my breeches, lying crumpled amid my boots and saw-hand where I'd left all during my time with the lively Annie. By now I had gained speed in dressing one-handed and did not leave my captain waiting for long before I was clad once again – and now sporting my beautiful new appendage. 

Shear-lock turned and headed to the greater dark of the jungle beyond the shore; I followed half a step behind, without a word, trying not to stumble in the sand that covered a stationary surface. Not until we were in the undergrowth did he strike a light to the lantern he held; the gold glow surrounded his face and made its pleased expression into a ball-masque. "To the harbor, Jack," he said in a low tone. "We've a shark penned in this bay, ready for the harpoon. Madame Tita's labourers have well-earned their baubles."

I knew he did not refer to a fish. "Surely you'll want the others – "

"Yes, in due time."

Puzzled by his secrecy but as trusting as when we followed him to his strike sites which nearly always netted us a good catch, I kept behind Shear-Lock, moving as silently as I could, until yellow light and noise and the reek of civilization ahead made stealth unnecessary. 

We reached the break where the jungle path deposited us at the edge of Sholto Bay's great main harbor and the town therein – such a mangy collection of taverns, whorehouses, slopshops, eateries, gambling halls, ragpickers, opium-houses, slave-brokers and barber-shops that were it not for the hot humid climate I would think we were back in London. After my long exile from other people, the noise and bustle and smell of the town made me nervous, and I tightened my grip on my handsome pistol. Even at this unholy hour Sholto was abustle – drunken sailors, caterwauling couples, slatterns and meat-grillers shouting their wares in similar tones, and the like.

Only now that we were clear of the dark island-forest did I see that Shear-Lock did not wear his handsome jacket and boots, but the plain dull slops and clogs of a conscripted sailor, his hair bound behind in a rough queue. The way he slung an arm around my shoulders and beamed as if drunk startled me no less. 

"Shear-Lock?"

"I'll show you how I troll for sharks, my brave Jackie," he slurred, before cracking out a loud and off-key song. It was an old seaman's catch and one I knew, so catching on to his play-acting I bellowed out my own accompaniment, counter-lurching against him as if we two kept each other upright. We narrowly missed an irate whore tossing her chamber-pot's contents in our direction with a curse after it as we stumbled under her window at one establishment – in other words, we attracted no undue attention to ourselves – and I saw that Shear-Lock, in leaning against my left side, cleverly hid my gleaming gilt-and-berubied new "hand" from casual observers. 

We passed the Belle Peche, the house from where our girls had been hired, but did not turn in; another house, and another, and then Shear-Lock and I staggered down a stinking alley to what was clearly the backside of a larger, grander-looking building than many of the others of its ilk. "What would a sailing-man do with his first real taste of wealth once he is ashore, my bonny boy?" Shear-Lock said mainly to himself. 

"Find the tavern with the prettiest whores, the biggest tankards and the quickest dice and spend it as fast as he can," I responded promptly. "Even I know that much, Ca – mate," I corrected myself even as he began to shush me once again. I took another look at the bright, loud, reeking building before us. By its size alone, I reckoned it to be the Crown. 

Shear-Lock rapped on the door. A few moments later it opened, and a rusty kitchen knife pointed straight up at our navels; it was held by a little black girl in a ragged and greasy grey dress and with a hard grim look that did not belong in her young eyes. The reek of beer, vomit and kitchen grease billowed out from behind her, as did the noise of the establishment. 

"You must be the head maid, young woman," Shear-Lock said in his most elegant voice, bowing. 

"Scullery, sir," she said with just a soft lisp through the gaps in her infant-teeth. The hard wary look did not leave her eyes, nor did her knife-hand lower. I sadly thought of how many depraved sailors would not hesitate to abuse even this child, and did not grudge her her mistrust of what looked like two drunken louts.

"I only wish to find a friend of ours who is said to be visiting this establishment." And Shear-Lock produced a coin – not a copper, but a gold louis. "May I please come in?"

I saw the gold shine in the girl's eyes – surely, more money than she'd ever held in her life, and nearly enough to buy a small slave her freedom – before it disappeared into her other hand in a twinkling. "I've to get back to work or it's my breakfast and the strop," she said.

"Do so, then. And when you are old enough to use that knife with distinction, young lady," Shear-Lock said, "you would be a welcome addition to any ship of the Brethren's."

The little girl looked back at him one last time. "Lucy. And I ain't seen neither o' you." She headed back to the kitchen, leaving the door ajar. 

"Thank you, Miss Lucy." Shear-Lock turned to me. "Wait in the out-building until you hear me return, then follow a little after." With no other words he was in and the door clicked shut. I found myself rather foolishly staring at the blank wall in a dark alley inhabited only by myself, a few pigs, and at least one cutthroat who fled when he saw the light flash off my saw-hand and saw I was neither unarmed nor drunk. Catching myself, I grunted as if with an urge for the head and entered the foul dark out-house directly behind the Crown. It was pitch-black in the room – not that I wanted to see what caused the stench, nor see the rats whose thumps and rustles I clearly heard.

The unpleasantness of my confinement, anticlimactical after the quiet excitement of the hunt we were on, made the time stretch abominably. But eventually I heard voices approach me; two men's voices. One was Shear-lock's, though he spoke not only in a drunken slur but with a Dutch accent. "… _ja ja, een zeldzame vintage wijn_ \- ferry old, ferry rare, _erg duur_ \- ferry dear," Shear-Lock chattered, "for the man vith _geld_ , money, ja?" 

"At Belle Peche?" his companion said – in a slurred voice that was not falsified drunkenness. "I thought all they had was ugly whores!"

A chill of fire ran down my spine and I straightened, hand on my pistol and teeth clenched. For I _knew_ that other voice, even though I'd only heard it speak twice. 

The outhouse door thumped as Shear-Lock seemed to stumble against it. " _Ja ja,_ Madame Tita, a man paid vith two pottles for two girls, he didn't know the _wijn_ vas so rare!" 

The other man laughed louder. "For a pair of those sluts? Madame Tita robbed him! It's the first time she's had something worthwhile in her house." 

Shear-Lock laughed with him; the captain had clearly spent some time in the Crown making friends with this fellow over a pot and a dice-table. Their noise receded as they moved away. 

One positive effect of my time in the pitch-black and noisome closet was that the alley was better-lit and cleaner-smelling in comparison when I emerged. I saw my two silhouettes retreating along the alleyway, and followed as surreptitiously as I could. Now I felt my blood sing as it did when the _Baker_ went into battle. 

Back along the churned mass of sand, mud, vomit and excrement that masqueraded as the town's high street, to the Belle Peche – and past. Yet I did not hear Shear-Lock's companion protest their passing the brothel and its promised treasure; they walked into the thick jungle growth that bordered the harbor's edifices and vanished. I followed, guided by the bobbing yellow light of Shear-Lock's lantern as if it was a will-o'-the-wisp.

When I emerged into a small clearing, I saw why the man had not spoken. Shear-Lock held a pistol to the man's head, and the captain's face was set like a granite statue's. The lantern was on the ground, throwing yellow light up into the other man's terrified face. 

"Jack," Shear-Lock said, in a voice as stony as his face, "This is James Norris, sailing master of the _Nightingale_ \- formerly in that same position aboard the _Octavius_."

Norris looked up from his kneeling position as I looked down into his fear-frozen face. We recognized each other. "Oh Jesus – " he whispered, naked terror on his face at the rage in mine. 

"Captain Shear-Lock," I said coldly, knowing that subterfuge was no longer needed. "This is the man who murdered Mr. Cartwright, and helped take me captive aboard the _Spider_ for Captain Moriarty's attentions." I held up my saw-hand, its gilt base gleaming in the lantern light, and fancied that I saw color drain from Norris' face even in the yellow lamp-light. "Did he, indeed, pay you all like fucking kings for destroying your own ship?"

"It was Milverton, I swear," Norris whispered, "Milverton, Captain Milverton made the deal, we couldn't do aught but follow his orders, he was the captain, believe me, oh sweet Jesus mercy, you have to believe me, he's got another ship now, the _Hornet_ , no the _Wasp_ , believe me, oh God believe me – "

"I believe you," Shear-Lock said, in his quiet icy voice that cut through the other man's sobbing. "I also believe that I need to send a message. It will let Milverton know that I do indeed believe you. And it will let every jack-tar from Nueva Filipinas to Tobago know what will happen if he touches Moriarty's money."

Heedless of the pistol at his head, Norris fumbled at his belt and dashed his purse at Shear-Lock's feet, still clinking with the sound of gold despite what must surely have been an epic spree. "Here, here, take it, take it all!"

"Why would I want a handful of rat shit?" Shear-Lock asked as if genuinely curious. I barely refrained from gaping at the captain's unwonted use of vulgar speech. "It's yours, honestly earned. I say we should let him keep it."

"Aye, Cap'n," I replied. I felt as icy inside as Shear-Lock sounded. 

"I spoke of a rare vintage, Mr. Norris," Shear-Lock said, moving to stand before the kneeling man, shaking and crying, his pistol pointed between his eyes. "And so it is – very cold and very bitter for those who imbibe it. However, I have promised myself to let my invaluable surgeon and quartermaster take the first draught." 

A great warmth flooded my bones. This was why Shear-Lock had taken only me on this shark-hunting expedition – he'd penned the fish and now offered me the harpoon. "Your kindness is appreciated, Cap'n," I said, and surprised myself by how level and cool my voice remained. "But this vermin murdered a crewman of yours, which is a greater offense to you than my outrage over my lost hand." There were only two men whom I wanted to take on myself; this sniveling thing was merely one of their pawns. "He's yours."

Shear-Lock inclined his head and turned back to Norris. "I take no pleasure in this, I assure you. But the word will go out: John Watson sails the seas under Captain Shear-Lock's protection, and woe betide the man who harms him."

"Mercy…" the man blubbered, snot and tears rolling from his face. "Mercy…"

Shear-Lock went still. He looked at the man's face a long moment, head tilted as if considering something. Slowly he uncocked his pistol and lowered it. And just as disbelief and relief blossomed on Norris' face, Shear-Lock's other hand darted forward with a flash of silver and back. Norris convulsed once and his body flopped down at Shear-Lock's feet, already dead. "What an unspeakable coward," he said contemptuously, blood and eye-gore dripping from his long-bladed knife. "And now the work begins."

I nodded, heart still icy at witnessing the death. 

"Language consists of patterns," Shear-Lock said as I helped him roll the corpse over; Norris' face was plastered with sand and blood. "When a pattern repeats itself a certain way and conveys a certain meaning, it will be read and understood – even by those for whom words on paper are illegible scrawls." 

"So we leave the body somewhere very public," I said, using the man's own neckerchief to wipe the gore from the dead face and ruined eye, "and marked a certain way."

Shear-Lock nodded once, a thin thread of a smile tugging his lips for a moment. "This pattern will also prevent others from being accused of these murders. A fellow knifed in an alley with his clothes rifled and his purse gone conjures up a hundred suspects. But a man hanging in a public square with his untouched purse sewn into his mouth and a spider carved into his forehead is a _jolie rouge_ as distinct as the man who flies it."

Here I must sadly confess that the Navy man in me, the Baker who thrilled to the danger of every strike and the blood of battle, snarled like a tiger in my breast more loudly than the remonstrations of the surgeon that recoiled in horror at the desecration of a man's body. "I didn't bring…"

Shear-Lock undid a bag at his side to reveal a sail-mending kit. "Doctor, this fellow requires your attention."

"I do need to practice my one-handed stitching," I said, matching the pitiless grin of my captain. "It's a cage at the harbour's mouth for you now, Shear-Lock."

He nodded as if we spoke over tea in his quarters. "As it is Newgate for you, Jack. Only if we are caught."


	2. The Rigger

We carried the corpse slung between us like a drunken shipmate heading back to the docks – I on Norris' right the better to hide my saw-hand under his shirt. Taking Shear-Lock's lead, I swallowed my fear and walked with the ease of a sailor returning to his berth as we reached the wharf. 

Only three ships were docked here, and but one watchman for the three, swinging his lantern and muttering at the revelry everyone but he enjoyed not five steps away – light and noise and stench emanating from several buildings. Other men worked up and down gangplanks and aboard the ships – black men, carrying provisions aboard and being cursed by their black overseer. The tars themselves were scattered through the town. 

"Drunken assholes throwing dice, pinching girls, but not me," the watchman muttered.

"Work faster you lazy shits!" "Yes Mr. Mack!" "Yes Mr. Mack." Thump. Creak. Thump, creak. 

"We hove our ship to with the wind from sou'west, boys," I trolled. 

"We hove our ship to, deep soundings to take," Shear-Lock accompanied me on "Spanish Ladies," all three of us lurching and looking completely debauched. " _Nightingale_ , sweet nightingale, beg your leave for just one more ale!"

The watchman gave us a disgusted look – which changed when Shear-Lock produced a silver coin for the acquisition of said ale, enough for a generous tankard for himself as well; he disappeared into the nearest tavern ostensibly on his errand for us. We walked unhindered to the furthest ship with our burden. Again I swallowed my fear and strode up the gangplank of the _Nightingale_ with Shear-Lock into enemy territory. The ship was currently populated only by the porters, directed by the soft voice of one of their number; despite the noise and lamplight from the buildings, the deck was illuminated only by the bobbing lanterns carried by Shear-Lock and the porter. We dragged our victim to the mainmast so he could better announce his message. 

Light approached us, held by the large porter who'd been directing the others; he stood before us, a look of suspicion in his brown eyes as he stared at what, this close, was very clearly not a drunken man. "You are no Nightingale," he said softly. 

Instead of his pistol, Shear-Lock produced another gold louis. "You are the father of Miss Lucy who works at the Crown, I perceive," the captain whispered. "Porters are unarmed. Your courage in facing us is exemplary."

The porter froze and his eyes widened in silent fear – the same fear I'd felt when this stranger had told me my life history. 

"Your daughter is safe and well," Shear-Lock said, "as well as she can be, working in that brothel. She's brave and perceptive, and deserves a better life. I gave her a coin for the intelligence which led to this fellow's current state. This one," Shear-Lock turned the Louis he held between two fingers, "added to what I gave her, will free her."

A moment of hesitation and suspicion, stronger than a father's natural yearning and stronger than his fear of this perceptive stranger. As with Lucy's cold-eyed suspicion of us, I could hardly blame the man.

"Joe-Joe you slug, where are you goddamn it!" the overseer's voice shouted from the gangplank. The other porters on the ship paused and looked to the sound. 

"Here, Mr. Mack," the porter said without looking away from us. 

"There's a fucking box down on the dock, Joe-Joe, and that means your gang slowed down!" Up the overseer lunged and thumped to the deck, a smaller thinner man than the porter and gripping a short stick in his fist. "You first, and all your boys after." He strode toward all of us, lantern swinging in his other hand as he menaced with the short club. 

"Alexander MacIntosh," Shear-Lock said, voice level and ice-cold. "Former rigger aboard the _Octavius_."

I let go of Norris and the corpse thudded to the deck. 

The overseer halted. "Aye, and who the fuck wants to kn—"

I held up my gold-hilted saw-hand before the man's eyes, and gave him only a moment to stare in disbelief and terror before I swept it across his throat like a scimitar, my blood roaring. Shear-Lock's hand clamped over his mouth stopped any cry he might have given. His body and his club clattered to the deck, spattered with blood.

I too was spattered with warmth, and my face was contorted in a tiger's snarl. My new saw-hand had been baptised. How long since I'd felt my blood race in combat? 

Shear-Lock took up the overseer's club and stood to face the petrified porter once again. "We are pirates, heavily armed, and we threatened you and your men. You'd have been a fool to get caught in our feud." Again he held up the louis. "Leave us alone, and in a half-hour you can raise the cry of murder."

"As well cut our throats, pirate," the man whispered bitterly even as he took the coin – hanged for a sheep as a lamb. "They will kill us all for this."

"Not after I've finished marking him," I said. I had wiped my saw-hand on MacIntosh's shirt-tail, and was already taking up the needle and the small pouch of coins I'd found on the overseer's body. "Pirate business."

"Mr. Joseph, you have a natural ability to lead that suggests that you gain more work from your crew with fewer threats than did your late overseer." Shear-Lock handed the porter the overseer's stick. "Those who own this company will soon see that this was a wise business move, and will not weep overlong for the death of a former pirate." 

For a moment longer Joseph the porter stared at Shear-Lock, and down at the atrocity I was casually performing one-handed on Mr. Mack. Then he turned to the other porters, standing frozen where they had just witnessed murder. "George, Abel, Robert. We will lade the _Guillemot_ and the _May Violet_ first, and return to the _Nightingale_ when it is safe. Come." And he shepherded the other three men down the gangplank, leaving last and not taking his eyes off us till he dropped from sight.

"You see, Jack, a born leader," Shear-Lock said even as he pulled a few ratlines down from the mainmast and fashioned loops in the ropes. "That portage company will bless us for promoting a better man – and Joseph may wish to turn his hand toward a more profitable pursuit should he lay his hands on a decent-sized boat. Perhaps smuggling would feed him and his child better than this honest work."

I finished with my second grisly operation of the night, and accepted Shear-Lock's hand up to assist him in securing our two messengers and hoisting them to dangle a foot above the deck. The spider carved in Norris' forehead looked like a red crack in a window as the bodies swayed from the ropes tied around their chests and under their arms. Both men's clothing had gotten gashed here and there from clumsy moves by my new saw-hand, but Shear-Lock seemed pleased by the effect. "You must do that to the others, Jack," he said sotto voce as we headed down the gangplank and passed the porters, studiously doing their work and not noticing our departure. 

"The others?" I stumbled from weariness – my enjoyment of our celebration seemed days away instead of mere hours. "Any m-"

"Farewell and adieu, all you Spanish ladies," Shear-Lock sang, reminding me to continue our caterwauling through the streets. Only after we'd melted into the growth near Madame Tita's – the site where we'd murdered Norris – did he resume. "No, Jack, no more tonight. But we've spoken the first words in reply to Moriarty's edict."

I thought of the blood on the saw-teeth of my new limb. "And I've taken my first draught of your rare vintage."

"I did not lie to Norris." Shear-Lock's voice was level. "It will be cold, and bitter. Those are not the only names given me by the Belle Peche women. I have ship-names, locations, new occupations, for Milverton and his men." 

"Which is why you knew the dockside porter-man was an Octavius as well." 

I pondered that while we continued on the path through the jungle back to our beachhead. Then we had a new route to sail – not for gain, but for revenge. "Captain, in this business you know that my pistol and my gold hand are yours." 

"You are quite right, Jack," Shear-Lock said, without my having to speak the sentence he'd anticipated. "It is time I told the crew of this work."


	3. A Parliament of Pirates

"So Milverton is aboard the _Wasp_ now," I said grimly, thinking of the captain who'd callously handed his crew's lives over to Moriarty, and angled my newly-blooded saw-hand to inspect the fine teeth of its edge. 

"No doubt sailing under Admiral Moriarty's command," Shear-Lock added as grimly. "There will be time to plot our interception of the _Wasp_. For now we strike at the herrings and leave the sharks alone. 

"Ladies," Shear-Lock said without a hitch in his manners as we encountered a bobbing lantern-light approaching us; it was the whores sleepily staggering back to the Belle Peche for a good day's sleep. All five girls were clad once again and gaudily festooned with the jewels that had bought their services (as Shear-Lock's spies as well as for their avowed profession); they smelled of pork and fish, as they all carried greasy sacks of meat from our fete, and I was amused to see that the girl Baban also wore a shark-tooth bracelet that had been Wiggins' pride and joy. "Do you require escort?"

"Fuck that, Cap'n Shear-Lock," Marie in the lead said, hoisting her skirt with the hand not bearing the lantern to show a pistol at her waist. "Sorry for the barstid tries to get a free one off us." The other four responded in the affirmative. 

"Then I wish you good morning," Shear-Lock said, and we passed each other on the path. Following Shear-Lock's lead, I nodded my head to Annie as if we passed each other on a boulevard after Sunday services, and got a weary grunt of acknowledgement in return – a vast improvement from a whore's normal litany of curses on her customers' heads.

Only when we were well separated from each other did I speak again. "If the men turn against you because of this," I said, and laughed a little, "I've already had experience surviving in an open boat."

"And Hopkins will make an able captain for the _Baker_ ," Shear-Lock responded as jocularly, his jaw angling a little – no doubt running his tongue over the gap where Hopkins had knocked out a tooth during their duel. 

The sky was just beginning to turn pale with the coming dawn as we emerged back onto our harbour. The men were staggering about in every state of undress, some of them groaning with their rum-addled heads. 

"To the ship," Shear-Lock said without preamble, "the tide will be with us in two hours," and walked through the groaning crew toward the boat rocking gently in the rising tide at the shore. "Wiggins, row us aboard."

As the lad stumbled barefoot toward us and tugging on his shirt, I noticed not only the missing bracelet from Wiggins' wrist but the grin that would not leave his face; he clearly thought the trinket well-lost. 

*** 

Only after we had put our haven out of our sight and we were well asea, Shear-Lock called all hands. When they gathered at the waist, everyone from first mate Hopkins to Billy, the captain sat on the stern deck just above them, his legs dangling down over his own cabin door and one arm looped through the wheel; he looked uncannily as if he sat in the stocks. 

"You have questions," he said simply, "and wonder what we are to do from now on. Speak."

And they did – oh lord, they did. The roar of angry voices would have sounded like a mutiny on a Navy ship; a second or two of this noise would have had Captain Moriarty's lips thinning and his hand reaching for the cat. But I had been among them long enough to recognise parley when I heard it. 

"Our Crown days are done, Cap'n, ain't they?" Angel called.

"So we can wipe our arses with the Letter of Marque for all the good it can do us now!" Gregson snapped. 

"Do we run like rats?" Tonga sneered. "I say goddamn no."

"We've a few months yet before word spreads," Hopkins added. "If we strike now, quickly, we can still wave it at our prizes and step aboard."

Small added, "Aye, and we can plunder the full ship and keep it all ourselves – pirater or merchanter."

"But now we have to elude Moriarty," Murray countered, "and he's no doubt given Captain Moran the _Spider_."

Hector's voice wavered. "Perhaps we should find new hunting grounds far from here – in India or Madagascar."

"Run away?" Our sailing master made a face. "No seagoing Murray's been called a coward yet."

Angelo shrugged. "Running away's the smartest course, but I don't like it. If I did smart things I'd a stayed on Martinique growing tobacco."

"Two years I've been a Baker after leaving the _Scotland_ ," Hopkins shouted, "and I've gotten richer under Shear-Lock than under L'Estrade!" General boisterous agreement from other tars. "We know these waters – we don't know the Indian Ocean – and we know the Brethren here better than the Lascar pirates."

"And Moriarty might still follow us there!" Wiggins called. 

Gregson threw up his hands. "How much treasure will we gain here if we have to hide every time we see a sail?" 

These were only the most legible of the shouts and arguments and outright debates that broke out on the Baker; this had clearly weighed heavily upon all the hands, and the proof lay in the tumbled words and speech that fell from everyone. Through this entire palaver Shear-Lock said nought but listened, steepled fingers pressed to his lips, whilst his crew lacked only black robes and a fleet of powdered wigs to be the House of Lords blustering and shouting at each other. I listened (and thought of the naval men who dast not speak until spoken to by the captain, and woe to those who said something not to the captain's liking). 

"We've other courses to pursue." Gregson ticked off his fingers. "We continue to strike laden pirate ships and keep all the proceeds ourselves. Smuggling. Ransom. Slaves. Barretry. Striking all ships, English as well – I'd as leif be hanged for being what we are as not." 

"I will not be on a slave-ship," Angel said in a low voice that rumbled like a coming storm. "Not twice in my life, not though I am the one holding the whip this time." 

"No, no slave-running," Hopkins agreed immediately, "if only because it's too much work and we're too small. The only stench I want in the hold is bilge, not death." 

"I agree that the safest option is for us to run," said Shear-Lock, as if he were just one more crewman chiming in. "Yes, we will be called cowards in our waters, but we will be freer of Moriarty's grip in another sea. But we will only be freer, not completely freed. Gregson is correct; the spider's reach is long and his hands are full of gold. 

"Do we run?"

A few shouted "Yeses" but the "Nos" overwhelmed them.

Shear-Lock nodded. "Our second safest choice is to run the white flag, sail the _Baker_ into Port Royal, and deliver Jack bound hand and foot to Moriarty." An immediate shouted chorus of "Nos" warmed me. Shear-Lock smiled at that sound. "If you had chosen that, you would do so under another captain. That new captain would be sitting on a pot of gold…until Moriarty tires of his newest lickspittle."

"And even then," Murray called, "he'd only ever be Moriarty's second-favorite hound – Captain Sebastian Moran fawns at his right hand. Moran has a gift for removing things." He turned his head a little to show the long saber-scar, livid and pink against his black skin, where his right ear was missing. 

Smiling wryly, I concurred by holding up my gleaming gold saw-hand. 

Some men laughed at the gesture – the laugh of nervous people – but others called out in concern. "Dr. Jack, that blood!" "Are you hurt?" Only now that I was briefly centre of attention did others see that my left shirt-sleeve was heavily spattered with dried blood. 

"Dr. Jack, have you been plying your trade?" Angel asked. 

"I have," I replied, as icy as I'd felt when I'd taken MacIntosh's life mere hours before. "But this redwork I did as One-Hand Jack, not Dr. Jack."

"We have both done so," Shear-Lock added smoothly. "Last night, after the festivities, the two of us tracked down two former Octaviuses in port, and repaid them for their treachery."

The crew cried out, others gaped at us both. Only later did I realise how grimly amusing it was for men officially declared pirates to be aghast at a display of murderous behavior. 

"One was the fellow who slit Cartwright's throat," I said. "Our shipmate is avenged. The other, a rigger who likely had no hand in the plot save to take his share of Moriarty's gold and flee."

"I would like very much for us to find every last surviving Octavius and reward them in similar fashion," Shear-Lock said, as coldly as I have ever heard him speak in a non-combative moment. 

Many of the men grumbled or outright protested. "There's no profit in revenge!" "If I'd wanted to cut throats I'd sail under The Woman, or Slaney." "Hell, I'd have stayed in the Navy!" "What's done is done, Cap'n – it won't un-kill Cartwright or restore Dr. Jack's hand."

"Agreed – revenge for its own sake is futile and profitless," Shear-Lock responded, his voice carrying over the tumult. "I did not begin this lightly, nor solely to demand payment for Cartwright's murder." His voice was level, not angry nor pleading, as if he was reciting a point of law in Parliament. "Nor, as some may think, have I acted out of a lover's passion, to avenge Dr. Jack's capture, torture and destroyed hand. Leaving aside the petty and fruitless ordinariness of lover's revenge, the simple truth is that Jack and I are not enmatelotaged."

"I would not swear knottage to Captain Shear-Lock and then lie in a paid woman's arms for half the night," I said acerbically, eliciting a few reluctant chuckles. 

"Nor would we be so remiss as to deprive the ship of a just cause for celebration by not announcing such knottage," Shear-Lock added with the same levity. "What binds Jack and myself is the same red cord that holds us all – and why I now lay out all the facts of the matter."

Which he did – not merely the circumstances that had led to our current disgraced state but the parts Moriarty had told me while he'd held me captive and torn my hand away a nail at a time. What I remember more than the captain's voice or the grumbling crew silencing as they listened was what a glorious day it was – a fair wind and a bright sky, the lines and sheets creaking as if begging to be given their head instead of ambling like a pleasure craft. (Murray's hand twisting the ratline, as if he kept a mastiff on a short lead, told me he felt the same way even as he listened.)

The men were mostly silent by the time Shear-Lock concluded. "Moriarty paid off an entire ship for the sole purpose of destroying it as a lure to capture Jack. This is the wealth and power that pursues us now."

Murmuring. Some of the crew stared at me with fear and awe; I certainly didn't look like anyone but a one-handed tar, hardly worth such a vicious hunt. No doubt some of them were re-thinking their opposition to running away – or even to turning me in.

"Jack," Shear-Lock looked at me in much the same bemused fashion as the crew, "the _Baker_ , the _Octavius_ , indeed any other privateers, are simply pawns on Moriarty's chessboard." 

Hopkins and Gregson made disgusted faces; so did many of the other old salts. The nobility often spoke loudly about The Scourge of Piracy even as they hired their own privateers to loot their own fortunes –and turned their backs on their charges when they were captured and hanged. I thought of our now-useless Letter of Marque from William and Mary, and knew that no royal intervention would come for even this faithful treasury-filler. 

"Moriarty's enmity against Jack and myself is personal as well," Shear-Lock continued. "Jack defied him and organised an escape for many of the Spiders – of which he and Mr. Murray are the sole survivors – and I boarded his vessel, killed his men and wounded him in retrieving our surgeon from his hands."

More murmuring. More unease. More sidelong looks at me. The crew was very still. 

"I remind you again, lads," Shear-Lock said, his voice gentle and low as no Navy officer ever was in addressing his men. "We have two options that will keep us safer than we are now. One is to fly from the Main and take up our trade elsewhere, and the other is to give Moriarty Jack. I do not wish us to be safe. I wish us to carve a trail of blood and death – which will rebound on us like a serpent, as it has for the _Elsie_ and many of our other prizes – because I must let all our waters know what will befall them if they touch Moriarty's gold. 

"I intend to enact a policy of finding every last man who was listed as an Octavius, and to see that they die. They are to die in such a way that all their dead hands point to me. If necessary, I shall kill every last one myself rather than ask you to do so." 

The men were silent, scowling; Wiggins looked terrified. I felt my heart clench in my breast; my one hand tightened its grip. 

"Cap'n." All Thumbs, the ship's carpenter, spoke. "When we find these _Octavius_ dogs? How are we to point their dead hands to you?" Some of the other men nodded and voiced their agreement. 

It was not my imagination that Shear-Lock's shoulders dropped a fraction in relief. I felt my own unknot and my hand unclench from my Slaney pistol at the same time.

Shear-Lock hauled himself to his feet once more, as if set free from the stockade. He spoke in his command-voice, giving orders to his crew once again. "Do not touch a copper of their money – leave it in their mouths to pay the Devil. On their foreheads, carve a spider. Leave the body in a public place, preferably near the dock where it will be recognised as a privateer's corpse." Then Shear-Lock grinned like a bandanna'd skull; it was not at all the same smile I saw over the chess-board in his quarters of an evening. "If Moriarty speaks with gold, then I will reply with blood. If he buys a ship's crew, then will I murder that ship's crew, down to their very cabin boys if need be. That, and only that, will halt the Brethren in their natural tracks of accepting good pay for easy work, and perhaps Moriarty will find it harder to turn privateers into his hunting dogs."

The men rumbled; but it was a thoughtful sound and not the warning of a bull. 

"We sail for Tobago," Shear-Lock said. "I am looking for the _Gloriana_. Whether her hold is empty or laden, we strike – and I need only two aboard to die, possibly three."

Hopkins nodded. He did not look happy; few of the men did, but they understood the necessity of what we did now. Consensus had been reached.

But as the men dispersed, the one watch to sleep and the other to climb the ropes, Angel smiled and said the last thing, which made many of us chuckle.

"You've some blood in your eyes after all, Cap'n."


	4. The Bosun, The Rigger, The Dogsbody

" _Capitan, con permiso_ ," Shear-Lock said, as polite as he ever was to most of his conquests. He stood on the deck of the _Gloriana_ , which was now heavily festooned with the remnants of her mainmast, and populated by sullen sailors and disarmed musketmen under our pistols and swords. Lanterns and a huge fat moon were the only witnesses to the raid; our strike at sea in the wee hours of the night, well before the first sighting of land, had gone off flawlessly. The night-watch would get flogged for this one, poor devils. 

We bound most of the gunmen's hands, but one fellow knelt on the deck, crying with pain and clutching his badly-bleeding leg; I longed to step forward and assist, but could not. Tonight I was One-Hand Jack, not Dr. Jack. 

" _Chinga su madre a diablo, pirata inglés!_ " the stocky black-haired man cursed, comically half-dressed in his splendid captain's coat and half in his sleeping drawers. A scrawny black lad of 9 or 10 stared at us from behind the captain – his slave or his cabin boy, or both. 

" _Usted es valiente, capitan español_ ," the Baker's captain said, inclining his head in acknowledgement. " _Solamente queremos el medio de su oro, y dos de sus marineros_."

The Spaniards glowered but were under control. Any sailors below might have been thinking of staging a heroic rally against us – but as long as I kept my pistol trained on the captain they would not do so. 

Shear-Lock looked at all the Glorianas as the silent tars, supervised by our swords and guns, went below and brought out their capital. Shear-Lock had spoken the truth when he'd said _oro_ ; gold, in small stout chests that wanted two men to carry each, to be traded in Tobago for an equally-valuable cargo of sugar, cotton, tobacco, indigo and rum. More than one Baker made sounds of pleasure at the pretty sight, even under the dull glint of the moon. 

"Twenty chests altogether, Cap'n," Hopkins reported; he'd commanded the party that had secured the damaged ship. 

We grinned. But many lost their grins when Shear-Lock said, "We take ten. Half I said, and half it will be."

Men grumbled even as they nodded and obeyed. I confess that my heart sank too; that gold enticed – and now that we were no longer bound by our Letter of Marque we could simply take it all. Still, my mouth turned up a little. Trust Shear-Lock – a pirate chief who didn't drink rum, spoke like a Cambridge pedant, played the violin, and now refused to rob his quarry naked – to tack against prevailing winds. 

The Spaniards looked a little less glum when they saw that Shear-Lock kept his word. Even a half-cargo from Tobago would make this a profitable trip – once the captain steered the Gloriana into port for repairs. 

"We will also take all of these," Shear-Lock said, and waved a hand at the muskets we'd taken from the guards. "I dislike getting shot in the back." Gregson and Angelo laughed, gathering them up; Hector bristled with five, belying his slight build. I kept my sights on the black-haired captain who wore no wig – Shear-Lock would receive no fresh peruke for his trophy line tonight – while the rest of the Bakers carted ten chests across the rickety plank that joined the bumping ships. It would be my duty as quartermaster to count the gold carefully and apportion it fairly. The sailors glowered as we halved their cargo. 

" _Capitan, yo voy a tomar esa, y esa._ " Shear-Lock pointed to two of the sailors – a straw-haired man who'd walked with a pronounced limp, and a huge thick-handed man whose face bore the stamp of the China Sea, and whose bare arms were livid with twisted paler scars, too broad for the lash (as I well knew, carrying three of those grim talismans on my remaining forearm). The two men went still. 

" _¿Mi contramaestre?_ " the captain said angrily. " _¿Por que, pirata inglés?_ "

I held a steady bead on the Spanish captain but I nodded a little. Shear-Lock had rightly complimented the man on his courage - he'd cursed Shear-Lock to his face with a gun to his head and now demanded to know why we were taking his bosun (no doubt the blond fellow; the Chinese man had the hands and the look of an all-around sailor or rigger). 

" _Porque_ Octavius _, capitan español_ ," Shear-Lock said – and his words were made of ice. " _Son del_ Octavius." That ship's name hissed out of his mouth. 

The two men who'd been singled out uttered choked cries. The Nordic man shook. 

"Bosun Lars Petersson," Shear-Lock said, reverting to his native tongue as he faced the two. "Rigger Jung Jao, also known as China George." The Baker captain held out his hand and beckoned. I did not need to see his face to know that it was set like flint. 

The two looked wildly around at their shipmates, who looked distressed but did not lift a hand to aid them. I kept my pistol at the Spanish captain's head, but other Bakers aimed at the two recalcitrant sailors, and they shuffled forward, fear on their faces. 

"You took money from _Capitan_ Moriarty, did you not?" Shear-Lock said to both, stressing the name even in his level voice so that the Spanish captain, guards and crew caught it. "Moriarty wanted your ship destroyed, and he paid well for that to occur."

The two babbled. "Captain Milverton pay us, not Moriarty!" "I just took my share and left – thought Cap'n was being generous after we lost the ship!" "I follow my orders!" "We have to obey our captain!" 

"So you do," Shear-Lock said. "You were both injured in the explosion – splinters in your leg, burns on your arms and hands," he added, indicating the blond and the black-haired man in turn; they gaped at his perspicacity. "Your sense of duty is commendable. It is indeed likely that whatever remuneration you received came directly from Milverton's hands, but that was after he had been compensated by Moriarty. We know where the line of gold runs, you see. And we know there's more gold where yours came from. If you would both step aboard the _Baker_."

They both stilled, looking vastly relieved. "Ransom, is it?" Larsson said – and his voice had the same Caribbean lilt that Angel carried in his voice; despite his name he was clearly a born-and-bred islander. "That's Milverton's line all right. Good to know he'll buy us back."

Shear-Lock inclined his head without a word; Gregson waved his pistol to guide the two men across the wobbling plank, Petersson moving carefully because of his leg. Their former captain glowered but said nothing. 

Just as I prepared to follow the captain back, Shear-Lock said as carelessly as if he'd just remembered it, " _Y su grumete tambien, Capitan. Chico, aqui._ "

And Shear-Lock beckoned with his hand to the black youth behind the captain. 

Here, I confess that my heart sank and my blood ran cold. Surely he did not mean…

" _Se llama Junio, marinerito_ ," Shear-Lock said, his voice as level and low as it had been when he addressed the two sailors. " _Eras en el_ Octavius _el grumete de Capitan Milverton, ¿verdad?_ "

The lad stared at Shear-Lock, stock-still. " _Si, señor_ ," he blurted. I was as terrified for him as he surely was. 

The Spaniard captain angrily rattled off invective my level of comprehension could not follow. I caught the Spanish words for "ten" and "buy," "love" and "son," and speculation about Milverton's romantic proclivities which do not require elucidation. 

His words cast an odd effect; I did not imagine Shear-Lock's shoulders dropping a fraction from their stern attention, nor the less-icy tone of his voice when he responded in Spanish; "lo siento," (regrets) "pero es de Octavius, mis ordenes," (but he is an Octavius, I have my orders), etc. 

_I have my orders_. I gripped my pistol hard and glowered harder at our captives to keep my hand from shaking in anger. Shear-Lock would have to strike off my other hand before I'd kill the cabin boy on his orders. Not for my sake, not for his damned revenge, would I have any child's blood on my soul. 

" _Ahora, marinerito_ ," Shear-Lock said as calmly as ever. _Now, young sailor._

The Spaniard turned to drag the youth from behind him, but Junio stepped away. His dark eyes burned and his mouth was set. He straightened his back and marched like a soldier toward the Baker's captain, glaring up into his eyes – his defiance making him look all the smaller against Shear-Lock's lanky tallness. He hopped onto the plank and was aboard the Baker in seconds. 

At Shear-Lock's nod the other tars retreated to the _Baker_ , with me going last over the precarious wooden walkway. Shear-Lock made a full bow to the angry captain and the sullen bound or cowed men, and strode back as if on a cobblestreet. "Sails and oars," he said as Wiggins pulled in the plank, and the night watch sprang to their posts; soon we moved away from our crippled target and resumed our course when we were out of sight. 

Our captives stood together in the waist, surrounded still by armed men and a stone-faced Wiggins holding the lantern; Hopkins resumed the wheel. Junio stood behind the other two. Lars was querulous. "This doesn't make sense! Captain Milverton might pay for sailor-men, but he won't give you a wooden real for Jun - he sold him to Cap'n Regalado for ten pounds and called it good riddance."

"A bad cabin boy. He's slow, mean," China George said. "You have to beat him. He eats too much." 

Yes, if the boy was eating air and drinking punishment, I thought coldly. I was not Shear-Lock, but I saw the scrawny state of the youth's body through his thin homespun shirt, an adult remnant that flapped on his frame. A boy who did a man's work on a ship lived a hard life, one now to be cut pitifully short. 

"I fear I may have misled you, men," Shear-Lock said as he approached them. "I will leave you in Tobago, to warn others to steer clear of Moriarty and his works."

"How do we –"

Silver flashed and Shear-Lock lunged. The rigger toppled like a tree, blood still gouting from his eye socket. Victor, behind the bosun, pulled out his own blade and whipped it across Petersson's throat before he could finish his scream. Even knowing what was coming, I felt my heart clench and turn to ice at the sight. A good hot-blooded fight during a raid was one thing, but to murder a prisoner without warning was another. 

The youth stood, rigid as a mast, having watched two of his shipmates slain in moments by the pirates that surrounded him. He made not a sound. 

"Jun, is it?" Shear-Lock said, wiping his gory narrow-bladed knife with which he had killed China George. "Or Junio?"

"Jun," the boy snapped out, glaring at the captain and not at the bodies at his feet. 

No. Not this. 

Shear-Lock's open hand in my direction halted me before I even moved to step forward, and the look he cast me steadied me. Hope fluttered. 

"Jun," Shear-Lock continued, turning his face back to the youngster. "You need not fear the fate you have just witnessed. You see, I have sworn to kill every _Octavius_ crewman, for my own reasons. But you were sold off of the _Octavius_ , instead of receiving a dog's tainted gold for a cowardly act. That act classifies you as 'cargo' rather than 'crewman,' and absolves you from my revenge."

I almost collapsed with relief. I should have known…

The lad spat on Shear-Lock's coat, glaring up at him. "To the devil, fucking English pirate!"

Shear-Lock blinked. The Bakers started, but did nothing else – though many glared at Jun. They, like I, knew only to react when their captain did. 

Shear-Lock looked down at the lad who stared back so fiercely, terrified though he clearly was. Then he looked across to meet my eyes. Even in the yellow lantern-light, I could not fail to see the amusement in his own. "One-Hand Jack," he drawled, returning his attention to the boy, "do you recall what I did to that drunken lout who vomited down my blue jacket on Tortuga?"

A smile curled over my face. I could see Murray press his own lips tight over his own grin – he had been present at that occasion as well – and other Bakers were not as successful in hiding their mirth. I stroked my chin with the dull edge of my gilt and berubied saw-hand (which Jun stared at with fear, but also with a covetous gleam). "As I recall, Cap'n, you had a very special fate for that chap." 

He saw it too – the boy's brass that had carried him through his life so far, and had made him braver in the face of an enemy than most of the grown men on that merchanter had been. 

Jun set his lips and kept his deadly stare. After all that had transpired, I must admit that I was nervous at the thought of this enraged captive in close quarters, and wanted to suggest the brig for the boy as safer all around. And yet, Shear-Lock had gathered a crew by reading each man of us, and not by the usual press-gang of rum and a club. 

"Master Jun, you have survived much and are still here," said Shear-Lock to Jun. "You were sold away from your mother as a babe in arms and you do not remember what she looks like. For the last three years you have served – suffered would be a more accurate word – as cabin boy aboard the _Octavius_ , which clearly saved a small fortune in beef and hardtack by using starvation as punishment for you, on top of the usual floggings that always seem to increase with the blackness of a sailor's skin. You speak three languages fluently and island patois well enough to communicate. You can remember everything told to you. Your surest path to wealth and power is to remain here on the _Baker_ , to take a privateer's share; it is the best way you can begin to search for your mother in these waters."

Jun's face – changed. He now looked no more than his 10 years, and far more terrified than when he'd witnessed Shear-Lock murdering his shipmates. He crossed himself rapidly.

"Not witchcraft, Master Jun. Observation. Stay here and learn, and it may make your own fortune some day. Aboard the _Baker_ you will learn to handle a pistol and a sword, and you will practice with them. When you have grown to man's estate, you and I may finally fight each other over this night's work, so that you may avenge your lost shipmates if you can – and if I am still alive to extract payment for my insulted jacket."

Shear-Lock turned as if dismissing the lad. "Or I leave you on Tobago when we reach her tomorrow. The decision will be yours." 

"Cap'n." It was Angelo. "I know how to keep this 'un in line tonight. Ever since you've took Billy as cabin boy, I've been without a helper in the galley, and there's a massive pot needs cleaning out right now, from the nightwatch meal." 

I had a sudden coughing fit. Jun's face did not change, but his eyes shifted to Angelo. Wiggins and Billy both glowered at the newcomer. 

"Done," Shear-Lock said. "Jun, for tonight you are the cook's mate. A spotless cauldron will speak in your favour tomorrow morning."

Jun stepped forward with no reluctance to follow Angelo to the galley. The men watched them go, eyes following both. 

"Victor, Gregson. Prepare our two messengers for their work tomorrow," Shear-Lock snapped, once again the cold-blooded pirate captain. "Watches, as you were."

The carpenter and bos'n's mate bent to their grim work, and the crew broke up into their watches once again after the raid, one to resume duties and one to sleep below. 

"Carapuse Bay, Cap'n?" Hopkins asked. He had not left the wheel throughout what had transpired.

Shear-Lock nodded. "Well-traversed, good population. It should serve our purpose, Mr. Hopkins."

I followed the captain and did not stay to watch the bloody work I knew too well already. Carapuse should serve indeed. All we had to do was sail into a bay overlooked by the grim yellow line of the fort, its 42-pound cannons primed for thieves and pirates, and the armed soldiers that lived there, to leave our calling-cards for Moriarty. Child's play. 

I dismissed Wiggins to his own hammock and joined Shear-Lock in his cabin. Billy had left the ewer and basin ready, and Shear-Lock was already stripped to the waist and washing. "Jack," he gasped when he came up for air, shaking back his wet hair, "when this foul business is over I never want to kill another man as long as I live. Those two were exemplary sailors." 

There was nothing I could say to comfort him. He knew this toll would lie like a brand on his shoulders. I salvaged what I could as I made my own preparations for sleep. "You have also spared a life, and shown an act of mercy. Cook's mate for Jun is a stroke of genius, even if Billy will be put out at losing pot-cleaning duty." Angelo had earned his wide girth; after meals his pots always held enough substance to hold the attention of a ravenous boy under orders to empty them. "If Jun remains with us, by week's end his ribs will be well-hidden."

Shear-Lock dismissed that with a head-shake. "I need Billy to take on cabin-boy duties full time, now that Wiggins is yours. I need Jun to disappear as thoroughly as any lost Octavius, and add to the terror that ship's name will cause to the Brethren. His alternative to remaining on the _Baker_ is Tobago – which is no choice at all for a black child of no name. Do not admire me too greatly, Jack. I had been fully prepared to kill the cabin boy as well, if he'd received one copper from Moriarty."

"Then I thank God Milverton was cruel and greedy enough to sell his cabin boy for a few extra pounds," I said coldly, unbuckling the leather harness that held my saw-hand in place. I was heartily sick of this filthy business, if only for the changes it wrought in my captain and my friend. 

"So did I," Shear-Lock responded just as coldly. "Because he has spared my soul a particularly brutal murder, Captain Milverton will have a quicker, and somewhat less painful death than the one I had planned."

I looked down at my naked arm-stump, rubbing it. There would be an end of this business some day, a confrontation over this final problem between Admiral Moriarty and the _Baker_ 's master. "Milverton and Moriarty are your rightful prey, Captain. But Moran is mine."


	5. Surgeon, Quartermaster, Baker’s Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which One-Hand Jack exercises all his duties aboard the ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Blows cobwebs off the "Add Chapter" designation) It's been too long since I've updated. Many, many apologies to those following this tale.

I awoke the morning after our foul work alone in the captain’s cabin – he was at the wheel on the forenoon watch – and went up on the deck to see a land-mass lying before us like a long knotted green rope; Tobago. Sails of other ships dotted the sea between us and the island.

 

One of the _Baker_ ’s boats lashed along the side lay covered with a canvas like all the others; but the stench that already arose from what lay within told me of its two passengers – two good sailors whose only crime had been to serve aboard the cursed _Octavius_. I bowed my head for a moment as I passed.

 

The offwatch men were on deck, crowded around what looked to be a small drama. At the center stood the ship’s cook and the new cook’s-mate. I saw blood. “Bugger,” Wiggins snarled beside me, his arms laden with my quartermaster’s ledger.

 

“Ah, Dr. Jack, I was going to call for you,” Angelo said cheerily, with just an edge of pain. The cook’s left arm bore a long bleeding gash that dripped on the deck; his other hand tight-gripped Jun’s ragged flax shirt. “A quick mend before we attend to business ashore?”

 

“Mr. Wiggins, the rum, my kit and a pot of honey,” I snapped, ship’s surgeon now and not the quartermaster; my dogsbody left off his glaring at the cook’s mate to disappear below on the double. I examined Angelo’s wound and mused as if puzzled. “Someone was very clumsy in the galley. I do hope none of your blood got into our morning mess, Cook.”

 

The surrounding men laughed a little, and the tense atmosphere was dispelled.

 

“Dropped my guard,” Angelo said, feigning chagrin. “That’ll teach me to be careless around my own knives. Brought the new galley-hand along to see you set me to rights.” Jun’s face was mulish, sullen. Most of the other men stared with unfriendly eyes at the new lad, knowing exactly what had transpired.

 

“Master Jun, you have no quarrel with the _Baker_ ’s cook,” I said sternly. “The only thing this man beats is the dough for our Sunday duff. It is unworthy and cowardly of you to strike blows such as these before you yourself are of age to fight your own duels.”

 

“Cowardly?” spat the youth. “Your pig Captain killed two unarmed men!” This last snapped defiantly in the direction of the man at the wheel. Shear-Lock had clearly seen everything, deduced what had happened. Yet he stayed silent, forbore to intervene; he knew his Bakers.

 

“The Captain,” I said coldly, “has his reasons for having done so – and to have slain those two alone rather than any others aboard the _Gloriana,_ yourself included. Ah, Mr. Wiggins, thank you.”

 

“Dr. Jack,” Wiggins panted beside me with his armload, “I’ll tell Mr. Angel what that little black viper done, and he’ll give ‘im such a thrashing!”

 

The collared Jun responded with a foul gesture.

 

“Mr. Angel will deliver beatings to his watch as he sees fit, Surgeon’s Mate,” I said as I pushed up my sleeves (using the back of my saw-hand to attend to the right sleeve), “and he will take your suggestion with all due consideration. Rum.” I held out both appendages, the flesh and the steel, for Wiggins to douse with the spirit. “Now, when Ginger Tim split the fore tops’l top to bottom with his clumsiness at the wheel his first time, did Mr. Murray flog him for it?”

 

“Naw! ‘E made Tim set down with the kit and …” Wiggins’ face cleared up. “Oh.”

 

“Precisely. Now Master Jun, hold out both your hands the way I did mine, and rub them as if for washing.”

 

Still glaring daggers at all of us, the lad reached out both hands, which trembled a little; no doubt he expected a lopped hand or at least whipped knuckles. He blinked in surprise when a scowling Wiggins poured rum over them. Instead of rubbing his hands Jun immediately lapped the rum off them like a greedy tar who’d spilled his noggin. “Again, Wiggins,” I said, amused. “Master Jun, this rum is for washing, not your grog ration. The fire in it burns away the filth that poisons wounds.”

 

Staring suspiciously at us – we were obviously madmen to wash with rum instead of drinking it – Jun nonetheless washed under Wiggins’ second libation; Wiggins then doused Angelo’s bleeding gash, which made the cook swear.

 

“Now hold the edges of the wound together with your hands, Cook’s Mate,” I said while Wiggins finished threading my needle and dousing it with rum as well before handing it to me. “And watch. You tore this sail, and you will learn how it is mended.”

 

As with my instruction to Wiggins on how to prepare the poppy mixture, I talked along with the procedure as if teaching a particularly sullen medical student (unlike real medical students, however, Jun was not drunk and half-asleep from visiting the stews the night before). Fortunately the cut, though long, was shallow, and had neither struck bone nor a chief blood-vessel; this had been done in a wild swing of the knife with little weight behind it.

 

The Bakers continued to watch – men starved for entertainment, who often provided an audience for my surgical work. Wiggins scowled. Jun was silent; his eyes rested covetously on my gilt-and-berubied saw-hand more often than on the stitches I made.

 

Wiggins snipped the line and the bloodied arm was secured. “There!” I said. “Now coat your fingers with honey, Cook’s Mate, and daub the stitching as if you were tarring a rope. Honey never rots, and it gives that same protection to whatever it covers.”

 

Jun was halfway through smearing the wound by the time I’d cleaned the blood from my hand, and when he was done licked his fingers whilst Wiggins bound Angelo’s arm in linen. “You’ll have to do most of the lifting and stirring until Cook’s arm is better,” I continued. “And Master Jun – if another ‘accident’ happens, it would not be safe to keep you in the galley; you would likely get a holystone and a deck to scrub under Mr. Angel’s supervision instead.”

 

Jun looked at Angelo and then me, then toward the tall black bos’n who met the angry small black lad’s glare with his own calm stare. He said nothing, but it was clear that he heard the real threat: no more access to the pots that held more food than he’d been given in his prior life as cabin boy and slave. I nodded to Angelo, who let go of Jun’s shirt; the lad remained where he was, and I took his lack of spitting on any of us as progress.

 

“Now you can break your fast, lads!” Angelo said to the surrounding men as Wiggins finished securing his sling, still glaring daggers at the cook’s mate. “Apologies for the late mess – I’ll try not to have such an accident again.” The watch followed cook and cook’s mate to the galley; amused, I followed after with my apprentice to receive my own portion of hardtack, stewed dried beef and foul black coffee.

 

Gregson and Matew stood in conference with the captain when Wiggins and I returned to the deck. The island before us was now a wall of green. The white sails of other ships dotted round the ragged parts of that wall of living green; coves and bays, no doubt, and the largest cluster of white sails around what must be Carapuse. I had been well-briefed on this port at the captain’s last meeting of the officers the other day.

 

***

 

_"Cor, it's tiny," Wiggins said, peering over the chart on the captain’s table. "We could sail it one end t’other in a day."_

_"Aye," Angel added, "tiny as a gem, and as valuable."_

_"More valuable,” Shear-Lock replied. “As fertile as Eden must have been – with better weather and more snakes."_

_Hopkins grinned. "And where there is wealth, going in and coming out…"_

_“…there also are the Brethren,” Shear-Lock finished. “Tobago attracts privateers and pirates as a flower-field attracts bees.”_

_“I can see why.” I traced the ragged coast with my forefinger. “All the little bays and coves.”_

_“Lairs, Jack! Lairs. Not all the forts that guard the main bays can root them out."_

_"The_ Gloriana _is to carry gold in, and sugar out," Gregson stroked his chin with his thumb. "They'll have a small garrison aboard."_

_"Spanish soldiers, at least fifty muskets." Shear-Lock sucked at his pipe, then pulled it out and stared peevishly into the empty bowl. "I hope part of their cargo will be tobacco."_

_"We are a one-gun barque that relies on surprise and speed." I delineated the curve of Carapuse Bay, where a fort would be located upon a cape. "If we enter the bay we risk cannon-fire from the fort, and the reinforcements stationed there."_

_"And therefore?" Shear-Lock asked._

_I smiled, and pulled my finger back, well away from the island, to tap the ocean. "Therefore…we strike the_ Gloriana _at sea – preferably before it sights land." My smile faded when I remembered our ship's new mission._

_"We kill only those we have pinpointed, if possible," Shear-Lock said smoothly, as if hearing my unhappy thoughts. "But if it will make you feel any better, Doctor, the ship is full of Spaniards."_

_I grinned, once again feeling the tiger in me roar. "That_ will _make it easier."_

 

***

 

“All hands!” Shear-Lock called, in the voice that carried from one end of the _Baker_ to the other, to the very crow’s nest. “All hands!” Angel bellowed into the hatch to roust the offwatchers.

                                                                                                                                          

In moments the _Baker_ stood assembled below the wheel or in the mainmast. Gregson and Matew stayed near the wheel.

 

Shear-Lock faced his crew, his keen eyes over his great parrot’s-beak of a nose looking over each of us. “Bakers, this is our first landfall as wanted men. Our messengers are ready for their work. Gregson and Matew have their orders.”

 

The gunner and the bosn’s mate looked to the reeking covered boat. “Carapuse Bay,” Matew said. “Aye aye, Cap’n.” Gregson only grinned. The one fort at Carapuse Bay, a wall of cannon and soldiers, was a formidable-looking obstacle but laughable – like expecting one cat to keep a vast brewery free of greedy rodents. There was danger involved, certainly – danger enough for such men as we.

 

“One-Hand Jack and Master Murray,” Shear-Lock said, “you have your orders as well.”

 

My heart formed a cold ball in my chest at this reminder of another danger. But I nodded, along with the sailing master. Hector, the carpenter’s mate and our swimming tutor, grinned.

 

“Master Cook, you are to stay aboard and teach your new lad the proper handling of galley tools.” A snicker ran through the men. “Cook’s Mate, your duty is to follow Cook’s orders, and to learn from every man and lad Jack aboard.”

 

The cook’s mate snapped something in a coarse, Carib-accented French – and from the captain’s eyebrow-lift and Angel’s glare, it was not a compliment. “Bos’n,” was all Shear-Lock said, but it stopped Angel’s uplifted hand. Jun started at being delivered from a beating, and glared at the captain. Many of the men shared the bos’n’s glare, but nearly as many of the old hands gave the lad a shrewd look, nodding at Jun’s callow bravery. Once again I was reminded that I was on no Roman tyranny of a Navy ship but the wild Athenian democracy of a privateer’s vessel.

 

Shear-Lock responded to Jun with a phrase in the same French tongue, but in a dialect suitable for a silk-clad and bewigged courtier of Louis XIV. Jun only glared at Shear-Lock, tight-lipped. Shear-Lock added calmly, “When you can repeat that insult in every language spoken aboard the ship, _garçon,_ then I shall be impressed with your vocabulary.”

 

Small said something in Tonga’s Andaman speech, and more men laughed. Jun stared at the paired riggers, especially at the little brown-skinned islander who was just of a height with the youngster though Tonga was a man grown. Tonga grinned his startlingly toothy smile at Jun and repeated Small’s phrase, before translating. “He say ‘That man tell truth’.”

 

Shear-Lock continued his orders with hardly an acknowledgement of the interruption. “Those on provision detail, keep watchful eye and sharp ears, and report back everything; be as cunning as Madame Tita’s best girls.

 

“Should you run into an Octavius, you know how he is to die. See that you do not die yourselves – or worse, be taken captive. You could lose more than your purse.”

 

I held up my saw-hand and the men responded with raucous laughter. Shear-Lock smiled. Men who were frightened or squeamish about losing limbs did not go to sea in the first place.

 

“I plan to go fishing whilst we are in port, to recoup our losses,” the captain continued, still smiling, “though we seem to have netted a young shark already. Angelo is captain aboard while the company is away.

 

“Stations,” Shear-Lock concluded, and the men scattered once again to their awls and holystones and ratlines, to make the _Baker_ ready for her port.

 

At two bells of the afternoon watch Gregson and Matew were away in the foully-laden boat to send their message. Green surrounded us as the _Baker_ weighed anchor in a tiny cove, tucked away from the sea by a partial spur of vegetation-heavy land, the barque’s shallow bottom allowing her to travel in waters that would founder a cargo-ship or galleon. The water shone like turquoise and was clear to the very sand; we could see the fish swirling around the ship. The cove was such a perfect lurking place that it did not seem real.

 

Murray laughed at my gape. “It’s plain you’ve never been to Tobago before, Jack!” His face fell as he looked straight down into that beautiful water. Stomach sinking, I followed his gaze to the fish swimming in that lovely, deadly stuff – and where there were fish there were sharks. I shuddered, remembering the greedy clutch of that water pulling me to the bottom when my recklessness had caused me to be swept overboard during a storm days before.

 

But I had no more time to mope, for the whole ship was abustle, and I had my part of it as quartermaster – it was my duty to distribute money for purchasing ship’s goods to the men on provision detail. As I doled out silver and gold I called out the amount and their recipient to my dogsbody, who stood beside me and nodded. Other men tumbled empty water casks into the boats, or ducked belowdecks to re-emerge dressed and bedecked in their best, jingling with their own wealth, to catch the eye of women. I remembered my romp with Annie and sighed; the only females I would be near whilst at Tobago would be porpoises.

 

Angel’s appearance was especially eye-catching as I handed him his purse; not only was he in a lemon-yellow silk shirt that gleamed beautifully against his black skin, but new jewelry glittered red from his ears. Long-cut rubies, I realised – exactly the same as the ones on my gilt saw-hand base that had been a gift from the captain. I smiled; I still owed Angel for saving me from drowning, but Shear-Lock had already rewarded the bos’n for that feat.

 

When the last Bakers were away to the boats save Angelo and the skeleton crew, I sat and took up the quill for the logbook. “The amounts, Quartermaster’s Mate.”

 

Wiggins obediently, and flawlessly, recited back the tally. “To All-Thumbs, ten gold louis, twenty silver reales. To Small, four reales, twelve shillings; to Tonga, the same. To Ginger Tim, forty reales.” And on down to the five shillings to Billy for purchasing new fuses for our one cannon.

 

I wrote down everything. “That memory of yours is worth every bit of my reading and writing, Wiggins.”

 

The young man blushed at the compliment, but gnawed his lip and looked in the direction of the galley. I knew his thoughts before he blurted out, “Dr. Jack, we ain’t gonna keep that little black devil aboard is we?”

 

“That is entirely the captain’s concern, lad,” I said. “And his name is Jun. It seems that he will be with us for a while, so you might want to befriend him.”

  
“Hell if I am! He took a knife to Cook!”

 

“His last captain was a cruel bastard who starved him. The kindest pup will snap if it’s beaten and treated like a cur.”

 

“Aye, and you shoot dogs like that!” Wiggins glared as if he could look through the doorway to the usurper who’d taken over pots duty.

 

“Or you take them in if you’re Captain Shear-Lock, and you see something in them that regular salts do not.” I jotted down the tallies and nodded at the balanced numbers before closing the ledger. “I have my orders, Wiggins. Dismissed.”

 

And with a heavy heart, as my dogsbody happily fled to collect his own assets and dress for adventure ashore, I headed to the deck to meet Murray and Hector.

 

***

 

In the boat I stripped down with the sailing master and the carpenter’s mate, but looked at my saw “hand,” considering. I’d thrashed and sank when I’d plummeted into the deep, my stumped arm flailing uselessly. To climb the rigging I’d removed my saw-hand, not wanting to damage the lines or sheets. But now I looked at the flat wide steel blade with a new eye.

 

“Dr. Jack? Master Murray? In you go!” Hector said jovially, and waved us toward the small waves lapping at the boat’s sides. “Good place to practise the float.”

 

I unbuckled my saw-hand and left it atop my clothing, and went over into the warm water apprehensively. Not this lesson, but perhaps the next one, could I put this to the test.

 

Shaking in fear, I went over the side along with Murray – and my heart began to slow when I realised that both of us stood in water that came no further than our waists with our feet solidly on the sand. The fear returned when I submerged, chest tight with my breath held fast. But after the first three or four times I bolted back to my feet with a great splash, gasping for breath and shaking with panic – Hector watching and saying nothing to either of us, for Murray was not averse to the same reaction – I began to understand in my flesh that I was safe, and could let the water have me without fear. By the time of first dog watch I had lost count of how many times I had lain prone in the water, heart beating fast but my panic and fear gone.

 

“Good,” Hector said when we once again stood on our feet in the water. “You can float yourselves. We come back out here at firstwatch and do this again.” He smirked at our looks of horror. “Or do you think the weather and the ship will be kind enough to wait until sunrise to toss you overboard? You will be at home in the water day or night, sun or rain. Nothing to add, Dr. Jack? At four bells then.”

 

“Well done, both of you!” Angelo bellowed from the _Baker_ ’s railing at the waist as we rowed alongside after our lesson. It seems we’d had an audience. Jun leaned over the rail beside him, his face set – a distinct improvement from his murderous glare the past days. “I’ve a special meal to prepare for us all.”

 

“Thank you, Cap’n!” Murray called back. I knuckled my forehead – for while Shear-Lock was off the ship the cook was indeed the _Baker_ ’s captain.

 

The ship’s cook and temporary captain nodded to his assistant, and Jun hauled on a line. Up from the water came a thrashing, bleeding shark, impaled on a harpoon, at least six feet long. “We made sure your cove was safe for swimming – and caught this beast. She’ll make a fine supper for us poor _Baker_ -bound swabs.”

 

I felt my face grow cold. Murray looked pole-axed. Hector laughed at us both for our fright.

 

And Jun laughed for the first time, voice high and merry, before calling something derisive at us in island patois – no doubt slandering our courage.

 

“Now we know how to make that little dogfish laugh, Jack,” Murray gasped. I nodded, shaking as I took hold of the rope-ladder with my one hand, my clothes a bundle on my back, my truncated arm hooking elbow on the next rung.

 

Angelo laughed at us again when we stood on the deck and surveyed the catch. Still on the deck in a welter of blood – a grinning Jun holding the blood-daubed gaff – the terrifying fish proved to be mostly tail and fin. “You’re in luck, lads – this is the biggest threat here!” Angelo laughed cheerily. With his unslinged hand he hoisted up the snout of the hen-shark to reveal a mouth that was only as wide as an orange. “This old girl couldn’t get her teeth around a sailor-man. At best, these can nip off a finger or two – so you’re half-safe, One-Hand.”

 

Jun laughed derisively at us again, and the sight of him holding the bloodied gaff was disquieting. Angelo clapped the cook’s mate on the shoulder with his free hand. “Ever gutted a shark, laddie? There’s a trick to it – and it’s high time you used the kitchen knives for their avowed purpose.” He turned his back on Jun. “Bring our supper along!”

 

For a moment I was afraid for Angelo. But Jun only slung the iron gaff-hook into the fish’s huge tail and dragged it off toward the kitchen, leaving a stream of blood.

 

Hector clicked his tongue. “Swimming duty means swabbing duty too,” he said to his pupils. “You’ll just have time to clean that up before supper, and then our next lesson.” He headed to the carpenters’ berthing belowdecks, where he no doubt had his own carving and mending to attend to.

 

I insisted on hauling up the pail of sea-water for the ablutions and dashing it over the mess (I had to re-learn the thousand little chores a two-handed man does without thought). “Ah, the life of a pirate,” Murray said mockingly, swinging the swab around the wet bloodied boards.

 

“Pull, you bastards, pull,” I responded wryly, echoing the refrain of the Baker Haul as I dragged my own swab across the boards. But even as we laughed my thoughts were occupied with the memory of feeling safe-held by the warm water, completely different from the murderous clutch of the cold storm-tossed waves in which I’d nearly drowned. For the first time I understood, in my flesh, that I not only could learn to swim, but that I would.

 

A few sounds from the galley – the clang of knives, a shout from Jun, then a howl that could only come from receiving a boxed ear – put my fears at rest. Angelo’s wits were sharpened by having such a dangerous charge, and he wouldn’t let Jun catch him off-guard again; Jun in turn, despite the odd cuff or two, had already been spared a dozen beatings that would have been given such a ship’s boy by a harder-hearted man. Once again Shear-Lock’s wisdom in his selections of men was made evident.

 

If the daytime float lesson had been frightening, the pitch-black nighttime one was exponentially so (the sliver of a moon no help at all, and moths and mosquitoes greedily swarming the boat’s lantern so that most of the light was obscured). But once again Hector made us stay in navel-high water and float, over and over, until we overcame the panic of being swallowed by pitch-black suffocating waves.

 

“Backs, now!” Hector called. And, floating on my back in that cool-warm water, I stared straight up at a cascade of the beautiful stars of the South Seas – diamonds on black velvet, forming strange pictures in the sky and pointing the directions as unerringly as a magnetic compass.

 

A star gleamed red near the Hunter – Mars, the harbinger of war. I shuddered and only just refrained from crossing myself. I was a man of science. Stars had their place in God’s world even as did we, nothing more.


End file.
